The humble stickman is a wonderful artistic innovation, allowing even those of us with no artistic aptitude to portray something human in a picture. As a youngster I had a friend who drew stickman comics while we were all bored in English lessons, and I still remember how much I appreciated the epic fight scenes he created using a simple art style (it was better than Macbeth anyway). The foundation of early internet culture was built on stickman animations, and I watched dozens of hours of stupid stick violence. Now as an intellectual adult though I need more social commentary with my stick figures, and the capitalist nightmare that is Stick it to the Stickman provides that by the bowlful.
In Stick it to the Stickman you play as a new employee at the evil megacorp, and to become the CEO you have to fight your way to the top of the tower. This isn’t a metaphorical fight either, this is beat ‘em up action with that stickman violence I’ve missed so much. Your little stickman has a row of attacks at the bottom of the screen, and by pressing the attack button you’ll move through that row until it loops back to the start. If you can beat the CEO at the end of a run then you’ll become a CEO, gain a top hat, and then restart again as another new employee. It’s a simple set-up that soon expands to ridiculous levels, and is satisfying every single time you play.
The physics based combat is very loose and absolutely should be frustrating, but once you adapt to this floppy movement it’s just too satisfying to get upset about. You can upgrade moves by levelling up and going in special doors, and when you do they become spectacular. Using a thunderclap to send an enemy smashing through a window to their death will provide you with the greatest feeling in the world, as does using a lightsaber to slice off heads. It’s juvenile, silly and gory, and too often that’s something missing in games now.
Not all moves you choose are physical acts of violence though, some are much more clever. A move that starts as a shout that knocks people over eventually is able to convert them to your side, and can even summon an angry mob in the lift to join the fight. There are healing abilities and ones that refill ammo, and abilities that set rooms on fire or levitate everyone in them. If a creative teenager could think of it, it’s in this game, and will provide a fun way to take on your corporate overlords.
As you succeed in runs you’ll gain access to the expansion skill tree, which grants all sorts of upgrades to future runs. The tower gets taller as you succeed so you’ll need all the help you can get, in the form of new classes or objects that appear throughout that’ll give you a buff. Early on you’ll unlock special abilities and combo types that you gain at the start of runs, but even the less exciting sounding unlocks like water coolers and coffee machines that provide healing are a huge difference maker. The different classes are fantastic too because of their theming and play style, like the Conservative who comes to the office packing heat and the office gossip who has more powerful shouting moves because they talk too loud.
You could probably call the tower climbing part of Stick it to the Stickman the main mode of the game, but there are so many others which all feature their own expansion skill trees and evolve as you play. The warehouse is the first you unlock, and it provides more of a platforming experience than the tower. You’ll gain access to a dash ability which lets you race through hazards to get packages to vans on time, all while using those stick man attacks to kill your co-workers of course.
Most of the new modes are entirely different though, and not just horizontal versions of the original tower climb. Cage fighting pits CEOs against each other in combat, but you can’t directly control them. Instead you’ll need to select the six attacks they use and place them in the best order to deal damage, and then can watch the fight automatically play out. There’s some fun strategy to choosing moves that compliment each other, and it made this one of my favourite modes to go back to.
If you’ve been an early access enjoyer of Stick it to the Stickman you’ll have seen a lot of this already, but you won’t have played the Survivors style mode. In this mode you’re used as a guinea pig in a lab and granted psychic powers, which you’ll automatically use to take down hordes of other mutants and the scientists who made them. It’s not something that will challenge Vampire Survivors for the Survive-A-Ton crown, but it’s another fun change of pace with so much content packed in.
I’ve not played any Roguelikes with the sheer amount of deep and meaningful game types as Stick it to the Stickman before, and the amount that every aspect of the game is fleshed out is just fantastic. The overworld is essentially a retro top down GTA map, complete with secrets and a wanted meter. There’s a prologue story to play through which glorifies the first CEO, and even the credits are essentially a battle royale against stick versions of everyone who worked on the game. This daft and violent game is the total package, and it impressed me from start to finish (yes there is an actual end too).
Most of the negative arguments you could aim at Stick it to the Stickman come back to the floppy physics of it all. As funny and endearing as it is, there are plenty of times where unexpected ragdolling or a stray silly bounce ended a potential successful run, and that is undeniably frustrating. There are also times where the physics defy all logic, and enemies will fly off screen without dying and you’ll have to figure out a way to progress or just reset. It’s not ideal and can ruin a session if you’re not in the mood for this nonsense, but it provides enough joy in other forms that I struggled to get too upset with it.
Stick it to the Stickman is a game that really surprised me, both in the silly fun it provides and in its sheer amount of content. It’s a game that’s better than the sum of its parts, and yes a lot of that is because kicking a stickman’s head off never stops feeling great. The depth of the game is just unreal too, and depending on your mood there’s always the option to play something different. If corporate bullshit is getting you down and you need some catharsis, Stick it to the Stickman by doing lots of murder today.
